Plasma or Lcd Tv...driving me mad chosing TV...

Got about £600 to spend on a new TV, have been looking on the internet for ages trying to find the best model for my needs and everytime i get close i find a review which puts me off, up to now i have only looked at LCD but looking on Play last night this plasma got some excellent reviews

So what i use the Tv for is.
Normal Tv through Sky which i will upgrade to HD soon...
Dvd's
No PC
Probably no gaming
Blu Ray to come
Tv will be in the corner of the room and we sit about 2 metres away.
I would like a 37" with full HD or whatever will play 1080..

I am aware the Plasma's are more expensive to run but a quick look online only shows a £20 a year premium over most LCD's ..so i can live with that...

Pioneer who were the largest producer of plasma panels has just pulled out of the business meaning Panasonic who use their panels (and was arguably the best plasma TV manufacturer) will also 100% switch to LCD.

TBF you would not be disappointed with either. As you have already found out, one has benefits over the other but the other has further benefits over the former. So either way you are compromising but either way you will be happy.

Well I was in a store recently looking at the various TVs and they were all showing the same film withe the credits rolling. Some were really jerky whilst others were as smooth as you'd expect. Not sure why but I'd think I'd wasted my money getting one of the jerky ones.

mudshark, thats my problem if you go into Currys or Comet to get some ideas some of the pictures are crap, like you say very jerky which is why the reviews on the Plasma got me thinking, the only problem now is getting the Plasma with a decent warranty..

Some were really jerky whilst others were as smooth as you'd expect. Not sure why but I'd think I'd wasted my money getting one of the jerky ones.

But you misunderstand me - inherent picture quality of one over the other is negligible. Obviously anyone would be daft to buy a set that is simply not as good as another - but that is down to the electronics driving the screen, not the screen itself.

Well when I bought one recently I decided I didn't want to waste energy, so didn't go for plasma. That and the fact they need cooling so they have a fan inside. Then I went to the lcdtvreview site (I think it's that with a .org) and they said Sony was best, and I got a good deal on one so that was that. I can't stand shopping around too much, it kills all the enjoyment

Note though that it looks far far better in my house than it did in the shop. In the shop you had to stand too close, so you can see loads of picture artefacts. In my house though I'm the right distance away and it looks lovely.

I have a Panasonic Viera, my in-laws have a Sony and my mum has a Samsung. All LCD.

The Sony is flat and lifeless (I did play with the settings and got it much better, but my father-in-law didn't like it and put it back to factory settings). The Samsung plays standard broadcast quite well but is very 'soft' - which is, I assume, their attempt to hide pixelation. The Panasonic generally shows pictures very well - certainly on DVDs, BluRay and gaming. It does fall over a bit sometimes with some daytime broadcasts/broadcasts from older originals.

You simply have to go into a shop and compare, like-for-like, different sets showing the sort of programming you watch most of.

How much of the screen 'quality' comes from the processing in the Freeview box or whatever? I would have though pixelation and other artefacts come more from the source than the screen?
Do most TVs have built in freeview now? We've got a great 32" Sony CRT and aren't planning on upgrading anytime soon, so have a Thomson freeview box (which is a piece of dog poo).

I bought a Panasonic 42" plasma last November after much online research and instore viewings. Very happy with mine, great sound and picture quality with Standard Definition (SD) broadcasts and now I've upgraded to HD....wow....absolutely stunning!

JohnLewis.com is your friend, they offer free delivery and a free 5-year Guarantee. Do your homework and then order online!

Screen quality can come from any point along the line. Just like a poor quality set-top box or a crap signal, the internal electronics of the set have an impact on the picture quality. To a MUCH lesser extent, the quality of any scart/composite/rgb/HDMI cables used will have an effect too - but bizarrely some people will happily spend silly money on them in the expectation that it will revolutionise the quality of the picture.

Another way of explaining this is the 'digital camera' situation - some people assume that more pixels = better quality, but it is the internal electronics and how they interpret the image that have the greater impact on the picture quality.

I would have though pixelation and other artefacts come more from the source than the screen?

Most of what you see on a nice HD telly is the effect of converting the SD source to HD, and that is different on different tellies. They do do a lot of processing inside though even for HD sources.

I dunno about freeview being worse than analogue. Doesn't look that way in my experience. However SD stuff on an HD telly doesn't look as good.. if you upgrade from traditional telly to an HD one with built in freeview, things could well look worse - if you sit too close

SD source on an HD depends on how well the TV deals with sample phase, in general they do it pretty well, a 1080 panel will do this better than a 720 one because of the higher number of lines available per sample

The bandwidth of terrestrial SD digital broadcast is far narrower per channel than it's equivalent was on analogue and the quality suffers as a result. i'm talking rural situations with no RF reflections here though.

You simply have to go into a shop and compare, like-for-like, different sets showing the sort of programming you watch most of.

My tips are... Ignore the TV HD loops they show all day, especially if there's cartoons. Make them show some DVDs (and BluRay), and even if you hate sport, make them show a footy or rugby match. Then decide. Even now you see TVs where the grass pitch keeps jumping between crystal sharp and blurred as the camera pans/scans, enough that I felt physically ill in the store and had to leave.

Currently looking for a 37in LCD. Panny Viera and Philips are top of my list at the moment. Any ideas how to get rid of a 32inCRT that's so heavy I can't lift it?